In 2005, Kerron Clement broke the indoor 400-meter sprint world record Michael Johnson had held for 10 years. He won silver and gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics for the 400-meter hurdles and the 4 x 400-meter relay, respectively. He competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and made it to the finals despite having had surgery earlier in the year.

Last year he treated himself to a 2012 Mercedes-Benz CLS550. It seems fitting that a world-class hurdler and sprinter would want an elegant performance ride.

“It is a very, very fast car,” Clement says. “I love fast cars and that’s one of them. It drives smooth,” he says after scoring the car a perfect 10. “I love my car. The features are pretty cool. It has a lot of features on the dashboard. It has night vision and LED lighting on the door panels. I just love it.”

The CLS is an upgrade from his 2006 CLS550. One of the first things Clement did when he won the 2006 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships was buy his dream car. Winning $100,000 allowed him to pay cash.

That CLS stood out in Gainesville, Florida, where he was based and trained. “Gainesville is a very small town and nobody really had that particular car and I put on chrome rims and tinted windows,” he says.

But he likes the new CLS better. “It’s so much smoother. When you’re in the car you can hardly hear the noise outside,” he says. “It’s faster than the older car.”

Car he learned to drive in

Born in Trinidad, Clement moved with his family to the Houston area when he was a teenager. That’s where he learned to drive in his brother-in-law’s 1995 Chevrolet Impala. But it was his PlayStation 3 that made him more comfortable behind the wheel.

“My brother-in-law taught me how to drive mostly in a parking lot. He didn’t really want me to drive on the road. I would learn how to drive on my PS3. I would play driving games and when my brother-in-law was teaching me how to drive, he was like, ‘Wow, you’re a quick learner.’ That’s because I would learn from the game,” he says.

It was that experience and his brother-in-law’s advice that helped Clement pass his driving test. “One thing he did tell me was, ‘Don’t drive too fast’ when I was taking the test, and ‘don’t put one hand on the wheel; you have to have both hands on the wheel or you’ll fail,'” he recalls.

“Parallel parking was a little challenging, but when I moved out to L.A. that’s where I really had to learn how to parallel park, because everybody parallel parks in L.A. I would bump cars every now and then to learn,” he says with a laugh. “But there were no major scratches.”

First car bought

Clement attended the University of Florida, where he was an NCAA champion. He left school to turn professional in 2005 and train for the Olympics, but stayed in Gainesville. The vehicle that got him to training sessions: A 2005 GMC Yukon Denali.

“I was training at the University of Florida but I drove up to Atlanta to buy the car,” he says. “I went up to visit a friend in Atlanta and they were telling me I should buy a car, that I had the money and it was cheaper and that’s why I got it. It had the DVD player and heated seats. I prefer a sports car. I love sports cars. The Mercedes is my dream car and that’s what I got after the truck.”

He bought his 2006 CLS550 as a second car. “It was a weekend car. I would drive the Denali to practice all the time and on the weekends I would drive the Mercedes.” He drove it so little it only had 3000 miles on it after a few years.

The ’06 CLS accumulated more mileage when he relocated to Los Angeles in 2007 to train for the 2008 Summer Olympics

Favorite road trip

Clement took his favorite road trip a few years ago, from Gainesville to Miami on the Florida Turnpike. “I went to a Mariah Carey concert in Miami. You can play music and just drive for hours. I just drive and get lost in time. It was fun. Five hours and that’s the longest I’ve ever driven,” he says with a laugh.

World Championships in Moscow Aug. 10

Clement moved back to Florida two years ago and has been training for the August 10 start of the World Championships in Moscow.

“Every athlete wants to win Worlds because Worlds is where they pay you. The Olympics do not pay you,” he says. “First place would be $60,000.”

He also hopes to qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.

Clement won two World Championships back to back, in 2007 and 2009, in the 400-meter hurdles. “I got hurt in the last World Championships in Korea and I wasn’t able to defend my title, and that motivated me to do better in this one coming up now in Russia,” he says.

In the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Clement won a gold medal for the 4 x 400 meter relay and a silver medal for the 400-meter hurdles. In London last year, he made it to the finals but didn’t medal. He still viewed it as a major accomplishment after having surgery in February.

Clement said the injuries — a hernia and an adductor (muscle) injury — taught him patience.

“I took nine weeks off. I had one race before the Olympic trials. I went to the Olympic trials and finished third,” he said, adding that the path back to the Olympic finals was an emotional one. “Only my family believed in me. I did not medal but I felt like I had won a million dollars because of my journey of getting there.”

Clement has been training five days a week, four hours a day, since November for the World Championships in Moscow. For more information, visit www.kerronclementonline.com.